End of All Hope
by Sa'Kage
Summary: He lost his innocence long ago, for who better to damn himself than the already damned? Oneshot, songfic, AU, rated for for mentions of death and minor swearing.


Yeah, this is the edited version. I realized that I really wasn't happy with how it was when I posted it, so I went back over it. I still don't have a beta, so this is probably still crap, but I'm working on it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or the song End Of All Hope.

**End OF All Hope**

_It is the end of all hope  
To lose the child, the faith  
To end all the innocence  
To be someone like me_

The knife went in without a sound, and pulled out just as quietly. The target _(don't ever allow them to be human)_ died gasping, drowning in their own blood. The assassin watched it happen, as his assignment _(just an order, never a murder)_ drew to its completion. That's all it was. He did this so that someone else wouldn't, he did this because no one else would. After all, who better to damn himself than the already damned?

That was what they said behind his back.

The mission was one very few would even dream of doing, after all, even shinobi dislike killing children. But he was just a child himself, caught up in an adult's world, with no options left except to join it. He had lost all faith in the world the day his innocence was stained red with the blood of his first kill. He was five.

He killed because he knew nothing else.

_This is the birth of all hope  
To have what I once had  
This life unforgiven  
It will end with a birth_

He watched the Academy students with a wistful smile once, he was told. He laughed, but wondered. Did he watch those foolish young ones?

They were so innocent.

He envied them for what they had, but even though he wanted to, he could not hate them. They were too pure for that. They had what he had lost, but even a shinobi like himself, someone so skilled in at stealing anything and everything, could not take it back.

All he could do was take it from others and destroy it, and for that, he knew, he would never be forgiven.

_No will to wake for this morn  
To see another black rose born  
Deathbed is slowly covered with snow_

The sunrise was always bloody to him, and every flower was black. Even the snow that rarely appeared was tainted by what he knew it concealed.

The beautiful white snow hid the ugliest thing he had ever known: the graves of innocents.

_Angels, they fell first but I'm still here  
Alone as they are drawing near  
In heaven my masterpiece will finally be sung_

Children were angels, many had said. If that was so, he thought, he must be a fallen angel. Why else would they name him demon?

He was forever alone, for no one else had fallen from the Kami's grace. Only he dared to love the Shinigami, for they were dear friends, the fallen angel and Death. After all, he had seen the Black Musician's face often enough, every time he added another note to Death's masterpiece of souls.

_Wounded is the deer that leaps highest  
And my wound it cuts so deep  
Turn off the light and let me pull the plug_

At night he would wake with a scream strangled in his throat, feeling the sword pushing through his heart again and again, as his dearest mentor's shuriken cut into his flesh. He had run the fastest he ever would that day, struggling to stay alive, so that he could kill the most precious person in the world to him.

At night he would lay awake for hours afterward, bathed in the faint blue light of his lamp until even that grew to be too much and he pulled the plug, plunging everything into the darkness he lived in.

He could heal almost anything, thanks to the one he kept inside him, but some wounds never truly go away.

_Mandylion, without a face  
Deathwish without a prayer  
End of hope  
End of love  
End of time, the rest is silence_

He had long since put the mask on and never took it off.

ANBU swallowed everything. Your life, your love, even your face withered away beneath the blank masks. Many hoped for death, but ANBU swallowed that too, until all you did was exist out of time, waiting in silence for the next mission.

At first he longed for the missions, for they let him feel alive. He lived for the blood pumping through his veins, the song of adrenaline in his ears.

But then it became clear, that he lived only for the death of others, and it was then he began to crave the silence of the wait. At least then he was not tainting the air with blood.

_It is the end of all hope  
To lose the child, the faith  
To end all the innocence  
To be someone like me_

_This is the birth of all hope_  
_To have what I once had_

He lived as all ANBU do, until the day he reclaimed his identity.

He failed a mission.

_It is the end of all hope  
To lose the child, the faith  
To end all the innocence  
To be someone like me_

_It is the end of all hope_  
_To lose the child, the faith_  
He watched the blade come closer, preparing to end his life.

He knew this would happen when he turned aside his hand, saved a child from becoming just another note in Death's song. He had looked at the boy and seen himself, and he couldn't complete his mission. A failed mission was a death sentence for him.

His execution was set in stone the day he betrayed all that the ANBU code stood for. He had disobeyed an order, just to spare one of Konoha's enemies. He was exactly twelve years old the day the blow fell.

_End of all hope_

He knew this would happen. They called him demon, and a demon he was. After all, demons did not exist until the angels fell, and he had paved the way to hell.

Uzumaki Naruto closed his eyes and let his closest companion claim , so, what do you think of the new and hopefully improved version?


End file.
